New directions in development assistance and agricultural investments must recognize and support women's involvement in the full agricultural value chain from production to processing to marketing. This report reviews current thinking and practice on increasing agricultural productivity, both subsistence and commercial agriculture, and examines what is known about women's roles in both sectors.

In this booklet the Sustainable Economic Development Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains the bottlenecks women face in the production, preparation, processing and trading of food. The booklet also presents an overview of Dutch-funded organisations and projects focused on food security that are working to enhance the economic empowerment of women.

The publication starts by arguing that the first condition for sustainable food production is enhancing women’s land rights.

This lesson brief looks at the history of customary land rights and examines the current conditions regarding Village Land and customary tenure arrangements in Tanzania.

This lesson brief explores alternative biofuel production schemes in Tanzania and their impacts on rural land rights and local livelihoods.

This lesson brief discusses how statuatory law and customary law  frame the rights of customary authorities to transact in the land that they govern, and compare this to what is happening in practice.

This lesson brief discusses the dangers and opportunities of increasing biofuel cultivation in Ghana and provides recommendations for a national policy governing this sector. It is part of the Focus on Land in Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool.

This lesson brief discusses projects developed to reinvigorate the process of land registration formalization in peri-urban Ghana, their impacts, and the risks of unintended consequences for women, pastorlaists and the poor if their rights are explicitly taken into account.

The 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development finds that women's lives around the world have improved dramatically, but gaps remain in many areas. The authors use a conceptual framework to examine progress to date, and then recommend policy actions.

One of the key messages of the report is that:

This lesson brief explores the multiple independent phenomena that affect relationships between farmers and herders, as well as the nature of their conflicts over natural resources in Mali. It is part of the Focus on Land in Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool.

[From AWID]  We, the Women’s Major Group representatives* at the Asia Pacific Regional Preparatory Meeting for Rio+20 call on governments to reaffirm their commitments to Agenda 21 and the Beijing Platform for Action, and fulfill their obligations to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW) analyses a variety of options for overcoming constraints and improving resource management in these areas of heightened risk. In each location, a mix of changes in institutional and policy measures will have to be combined with greater access to technologies for better management of land and water resources.